Today we’d like to introduce you to Sara Lezama.
Sara, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I’ve been baking since I was a child, went to culinary school and worked in all parts of the culinary and pastry field. Cooking my way through different kitchens. I started Rye Goods in 2016 with the idea of providing natural organic bread and pastry to a community that had no real way of getting it locally.
I started searching for fresh grain to mill and found the Tehachapi Grain Project, managed by this amazing woman Sherry Mandell. She works closely with Alex Weiser of Weiser family farms who grows the grain in Tehachapi California, about an hour north of LA.
Sherry and I became quick friends. We both recognized the current issues happening within the grain and flour agriculture in the US and were passionate about changing that issue. We now work together to help plant as much grain as we can, mill it with our newly purchased New American Mill Company mill.
And plan to get as much fresh grain and fresh flour to the southern California community as we can. It has been the most amazing experience being able to help grow the grain, mill the grain myself, and then use that flour in my bread and pastry. Its really comes full circle.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I would say the only struggle I’ve faced when starting this bakery was to stay focused and stick to the vision. It’s very hard to source almost 100% from California and to not give in to the commercially large scaled ingredients that are all around.
The struggle is quite real when your fields did yield the amounts you need, or the markets don’t have the fresh ingredients you’ve been using… but we adopt. Thankfully we have very understanding customers who love what we do and support the process, even if items come and go so frequently with the ever changing season.
Please tell us about Rye Goods Co.
“Rye Goods is an all organic bakery, focused on providing delicious fermented breads and pastry that you can feel good about eating. From the grain that we mill, to the produce we thoroughly and sustainably sourced. Our purpose is to keep the integrity between food, the people who make it, and the people who eat it. ”
Rye Goods is a bakery known for its naturally fermented organic breads and pastries. We mill all our own grains onsite and work directly with our California farmers.
Pricing:
- Organic Sourdough loaf – $9.00
Contact Info:
- Website: RyeGoods.Com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: RyeGoods
Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
